Thread

Owners mourn spoiled food after firmware update bricks Samsung smart fridges

323 points · 336 comments · nonfamous

100percentjake · 1790258905 · focus · HN ↗
Samsung smart appliances in general seem to occupy a similar place in the market to vehicles like the Chevy Traverse or Nissan Altima, where people with technical knowledge in that area know them to be absolute horrific maintenance and repair liabilities and yet the consumer base places them second to God.
Obviously the review of a brand-new device or vehicle with 100 miles on it is going to have a disconnect from the realities of 60k miles of rocky ownership but I remain baffled when people buy a 7 year old used V6 Traverse, a vehicle extremely well known for catastrophic engine failure, and if I question their decision I get a "the reviews were good!". It seems like journalistic malpractice to not retroactively update reviews with a warning when critical widespread shortcomings are found later in a products life.
1. torben-friis · 1790259437 · focus · HN ↗
  People's algorithm for purchases is usually "what's the best bang for the buck where the name rings a bell".
  I'm guilty of it as well, if forced to choose blindly I'd pick Sony over WMFSENSY. But I'm beggining to wonder, with the recent casualness with which brands lower quality, whether they'll be a generational change and people will start ignoring brands entirely.
  I'm starting to change my mind myself. My last Nike shoes weren't even the same size/shape (apparently they make left and right shoes in different countries now). At that point might as well go for the knockoffs.
  1. pessimizer · 1790260341 · focus · HN ↗
    > if forced to choose blindly I'd pick Sony over WMFSENSY.
    Only at the same price. If there's a big discount, I'm going to prefer the random letter jumble from China because it's probably a standard design that a lot of factories are producing because it works well enough.
    The only reason I lean towards Sony all things being equal is because I know that Sony gets sued when things go wrong, and won't just drop the brand and close up shop like the random letter jumble.
    Also I would prefer Sony if lead would be a problem somewhere in the thing I'm buying.
    Dan_- · 1790260633 · focus · HN ↗
    And then you find you’re powering a residential proxy bot net.
    pessimizer · 1790261124 · focus · HN ↗
    Oh, definitely nothing that goes on the network whose firmware that I'm not in control of. But that goes double for Sony.
    edit: I must add - except for this cheap Android phone from the carrier. But I head it off at the router.
    nkrisc · 1790262186 · focus · HN ↗
    You know that. Most people don’t.
    bitwize · 1790263857 · focus · HN ↗
    I bought a "mini retro TV" device from China. It's basically a cheap motherboard from an Android TV device MacGyvered into a case with its own small LCD display. It's got two old-timey toggle switches in the back: one for power and one for input select which doesn't work. I figured out what device it originally came from and put a build of Armbian for that device on it. I won't let its stock Android OS connect to the internet or my network for all the tea in—er, well...
    marcosdumay · 1790264696 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, Sony has a known history of respecting the user's security...
    vel0city · 1790266527 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah, I'd never want to do business with a company known for their products hacking your home equipment.
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...
    subscribed · 1790267505 · focus · HN ↗
    Phew, thankfully we're safe buying a big brand device: <a href="https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/07/lg-to-ban-residential-proxies-from-smart-tv-apps/" rel="nofollow">https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/07/lg-to-ban-residential-pr...
    :)

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